Zachary had promised to come back the next day, but he did not. In fact, he did not come back for two full weeks. In that time, the ladies from the bathing room took me under their wings and showed me the way of the palace. They brought me with them while they did their daily chores, cleaning, washing of clothes, and then finally the preparing of food for the other servants...or surrogates.
Now that I knew of the duty that would be asked of me, I dreaded him returning, and with every passing day of no visit lowered my anxiety and made me feel like a heavy weight was lifting off my shoulders. The older lady with the black, greying hair, was the most often with me. She taught me recipes of soups and brought me to different places of the castle. It was my fourth day there that I saw my first, obviously, pregnant woman. She was younger, but not as young as me, fair skin and hair and her stomach was large and swollen. She looked like she might topple over if she was pushed.
I watched her aimlessly until she noticed my starring eyes. She touched her stomach under my gaze and gave me a sad expression. I broke contact then and continued washing dishes.
"Darla," I ask the woman I've come to think of as my friend. "Were you a surrogate?"
"Yes my dear."
"What happens to the baby?"
"Typically they stay with their mother's until they're three years old, old enough for their vampire father's to handle, and then they go and stay in the main part of the palace, with their family. Their vampire mother's and father's."
"They just take them from us?"
"Yes dear."
"That's terrible."
"They're very well cared for."
"What are the babies...I mean, you're not a-a vampire."
"More human, than vampire, at first. And then as they grow up they become more and more vampire. They develop control over their fangs by three, which is another reason they are taken then. Like their ancestors, their aging slows around their fifteenth year, when normal adolescents would hit puberty, by the time they are eighteen their aging is even slower, and by their twenty-fourth year their aging is so slow that you can barely see it."
"Is that why vampires live so long?"
"Yes, they age, just not as quickly as us mere mortals. That is why their females cannot reproduce. Their bodies do not age normally or go through monthly cycles so they cannot become pregnant. Male vampires are not really affected by the slowed aging, much like human males."
She stops her long explanation and looks at me. "Do not fret, you will probably have more than one chance to have a child."
"How can you say that and be so uncaring! How could you stand for them to take your baby?"
"It's for the greater good. Your child will become a King one day, be worshipped and never want for anything in the world, isn't that the best fait?"
She leaves me at my chambers after that and I am left to my own thoughts. When night falls I crawl into my grand bed and get cozy. I'm just asleep when I hear a noise, but I can't tell if I'm dreaming or not. Suddenly, I feel my bed shake and a body next to me.
"Wha--" A hand goes over my mouth.
"Shh, girl. Don't speak."
I recognize the voice as Zachary's. "I've stayed away as long as I could. I've been watching you while you work in the castle, you're so beautiful and tempting. I can't stop thinking about you. I dream about you at night..."
With one hand still on my mouth, he reached over and pulled the blankets from me and then moved his body so he was under them too, and right next to me. I try to move away, but he pulls me close to him.
"Don't struggle, it'll be easier if you don't."
I fight, but he's so strong there is only so much I can do.
"I have so much pressure on me to present an heir before my father passes. If there is no heir, there is no King. I didn't particularly want to do it this way...but it needs to be done."
There is no pretty way to describe the things that happened that night. While Zachary wasn't particularly rough with me, he wasn't very gentle either. He lost control, I think, and he lost himself in me. He kept saying things about how beautiful I was and how good I felt all while I openly wept. There were times that weren't as terrible as others, but I awoke in the morning alone, in a cold bed with sheets covered in my own blood.
Darla helped me the morning after, changing my bedding and bathing me in the jet bath while I cried some more.
"It'll get better." She told me. "Learn to accept it."
But I couldn't. I wouldn't. He came every night for three days and every morning I would wake up alone. Finally, he stopped coming at all.
